Month: July 2018

Dear God, sit next to me. Take the seat to my left. Hold my hand, reassure me, nudging me to say and do your will. Squeeze my leg when I am assailed, reminding me that you are here for me. Point out my next step when I lose the way.

In my fear, I forget that you are always with me, already lifting me up before I ask. Let me see this. Let me recognize all the ways you supply me.

Dear God, somewhere deep inside me, there you are. As I venture inside myself I feel you in my distant center, a long day’s journey. This activity all around me, this calamity, this distraction, has driven you farther and farther away along this inner road.

Let me turn from the world and toward you. It is my own choice to be distracted. Let me choose what is better.

I pray for signs, power, intercession – forgetting it is all here already inside me. I will not find it in the world. I must look inside to where you already are. When your voice reaches me through the statements of others, it is this inner voice echoing back to me. I recognize you in the world because you are reflected.

Dear God, enter me; take up residence in my heart, rearrange the furnishings to suit you. Reorder me. I take such care with my own plans and habits, I meticulously square the corners and tidy the surfaces. All this, a measure of my need for control and order, itself a form of willfulness. It reflects that I do not trust, my faith is lacking.

Walk into my life, Lord, like a strong wind. Flip over the tables and give me new chores. Quicken my heart and turn my panic into love.

Let me be used today. Let me abandon the plans that do not work and follow your designs. Rebuild me and my foundation.

Dear God, let me see through this veil. All these events around me seem so real, and my reactions and emotions equally so. Someone praises me, and I swell. Someone criticizes me, and I shrink. Vulnerability becomes apparent, and I tremble.

Lord, grant me vision that pierces these illusions. I have sufficient resources unto the day, and gifts heaped all all about me — forgotten treasure. The shadowy figures who mill around me, murmuring into my ear, are ghosts.

Lord, let me make for myself an accounting of all these gifts you have long since delivered to me. Let me see reality, your constant support and love, and recognize the misty nature of my reactions. My feelings bear so little relation to reality: I hear harsh words, and I react as if a stone had been hurled.

Grant me faith, Lord, and make this my reality. Let me see the world through a new lens. Let me view all who come to me as sent by you.

Dear God, let me be simple. I complicate so much, building castles of intellect. My own thinking obscures what is real and solid.

Lord, please let me abandon prideful musings. Let me seek simple truth, even as this is unappreciated by others. Indeed, let me not only accept their judgment but delight in being seen as meek and unworthy.

Dear God, will you come to me? Will you bring me the power I do not have? I face the dawn like it is an army arrayed against me, as if I am a fortress that must be guarded. At my core, what I protect, is a fearful heart. I feel it in my chest, quickening and thumping.

Lord, still my heart. Settle my thoughts. I recriminate myself for yesterday’s shortcomings. Let me not drag them throughout the day. If I have sought to make peace with my failures already, I need not fight that inner battle over and over.

Let me walk forward today with courage. Let me act, even as I fear. Let me not cower, nor shrink from the dawn. As you cause the sun to rise, you may yet deliver the gift of relief. To receive it, I need only surrender, rather than gird for battle.

Lord, let me surrender to your will completely — even if your will may be that I experience fear, that I can be a more compassionate friend to others.